Silas Paine

Silas Paine (8 October 1741-27 December 1810) was a Brigadier-General of the Continental Army who led the 2nd New York Regiment during the American Revolutionary War.

Biography
Silas Paine was born on 8 October 1741 in Perth Amboy, Middlesex County, New Jersey. Paine was the son of a lawyer and an heiress to an estate in Holmdel, Monmouth County, and he came from a privileged family. Paine attended Queens College (now renamed Rutgers University) in the colonial capital of New Brunswick, pursuing a law degree, and in 1766 he was admitted to the bar of New Jersey. Paine would later become involved with the Sons of Liberty and become a member of the New Jersey Colonial Assembly, representing Middlesex County.

When the American Revolutionary War broke out in 1775, Paine was commissioned into the Continental Army with the rank of Captain. Paine served in a New York regiment, as it was more convenient for him to enlist in New York City than it would be in Trenton or Princeton in the south and center of the state. Paine took over the 2nd New York Regiment and commanded it during the New York and New Jersey campaign of late 1776, and Paine defeated an army of Tories at the Battle of Metuchen in November of that year, slowing down the British pursuit of Washington's army. Paine was promoted from Captain to Colonel in January 1777 for serving with distinction at the Battle of Princeton, in which he rescued Hugh Mercer from the field before he died. Paine served in Washington's army for the rest of the war, and he left the army when the Continental Army was disbanded at the end of the war in September 1783. Paine decided to resume his law practice and was elected to the State Assembly in 1788, serving on it until 1796, when he decided to devote his time to being a lawyer. Paine died in 1810 in his home of Perth Amboy, having married and had three children.